Double Feature
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: Richie gets attacked by gay subtext, and Eddie whips out his second fanny pack.


This is a tag for the scene in the book where Bill and Richie face the werewolf. If you haven't read the book or want a refresher, there is a breakdown of the scene below. If not, you can skip to the second cut.

* * *

Bill and Richie go to the Neibolt house as children. It's their first time entering the house, and they're alone. The rest of the Losers are scrubbing the blood from Beverly's bathroom.

Bill and Richie are investigating Eddie's initial encounter with the local carnival-tulpa-from-outer-space. (Eddie was walking past the Neibolt house when the Leper came out from under the porch and started chasing him.)

Richie is scared, but he is unable to dissuade Bill and agrees to accompany him. They take a Bullseye slingshot (Bill), sneezing powder (Richie), and a Walther (Bill).

They enter the house through a cellar window, because that's where Eddie saw the Leper. The cellar appears empty at first, but while the boys are investigating an old-fashioned coal stove, something emerges from the shadows.

For the new converts, Richie's fear is canonically a werewolf. Not just any werewolf (which, if you're familiar with Harry Potter critique, can be considered a metaphor for HIV and AIDs), or even _teenage_ werewolf (which can also be a metaphor for hormonal changes and sexual awakenings), but _the _teenage werewolf from the movie he saw on a proto-date with two then-strangers, Ben and Beverly. Beverly refers to it as a date on several occasions. Richie pays for all three tickets.

This _particular _teenage werewolf is wearing a letterman jacket with the colors of _Derry High_ and the name _Richie Tozier_.

The boys try to escape through another window above the coal bins. Richie reaches the window first, but as he does, Bill calls for help. The werewolf has him by the ankle.

Richie goes back for Bill. He grabs Bill's hands, but the werewolf is stronger. Richie is losing until he does a Voice.

It's his Irish Cop Voice, the first one based on a person known to him (the police officer who gently chastised them when their Barrens dam nearly flooded the entire town with greywater).

_Then, with no thought at all about what he was doing or why he was doing it, Richie heard the Voice of the Irish Cop coming out of his mouth, Mr. Nell's voice. But this was not Richie Tozier doing a bad imitation; it wasn't even precisely Mr. Nell. It was the Voice of every beat-cop that had ever lived and twirled a Billy by its rawhide rope as he tried the doors of closed shops after midnight._

The werewolf's grip weakens, and Richie pulls Bill through the window. Bill turns around, aims the Walther, and shoots the werewolf in the head. The werewolf is injured, but it keeps coming.

Richie throws sneezing powder on it. The werewolf is seriously injured— the first indication that It can be defeated with psyops.

_Gee, if I had some itching powder too and maybe a joy buzzer, I might be able to kill it," Richie thought, and then Bill grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him backwards._

_It was well that __he did. The Werewolf stopped sneezing as suddenly as it had started and lunged at Richie._

They start to escape on Silver, but the werewolf chases them. Richie is on the back, so when the werewolf lunges again, it hits Richie in the head. Bill doesn't notice until they get to the end of Neibolt Street and the werewolf disappears.

_Almost too late, Bill realized that Richie was sliding off the back of Silver. Richie's eyes were turned up so Bill could only see the lower rims of the irises below his upper lids. The mended bow of his glasses hung askew. Blood was flowing slowly from his forehead._

Richie is starting to lose consciousness, so Bill smacks him.

_Richie sat up slowly in the street and put a hand to his head. He groaned. "What hap—" And then he remembered. His eyes widened in sudden shock and terror and he scrambled around on his knees, gasping harshly._

_"Duh-duh-don't," Bill said. "I-It's g-g-gone, R-R-Richie. It's gone."_

_Richie saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into tears. Bill looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Richie and hugged him. Richie clutched at Bill's neck and hugged him back. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Bill should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except sobs._

_"D-Don't, R-Richie," Bill said, "duh-duh-duh-h-h—" Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Bill's spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted with coal dust._

It had previously been established that Richie makes sure they are alone before hugging Bill, in case someone thinks he's homosexual.

This incident is barely touched on again. The next time we see Bill and Richie, they're with the rest of the Losers, planning their next move. It's mentioned that Richie is wearing an old pair of glasses, but only because a friend of Henry Bowers who outweighed Richie by forty pounds slammed his face into the gutter the day before (and Richie got in trouble with his parents for the broken glasses).

_"We cuh-can't go to the p-p-police," he [Bill] said at last. His voice sounded harsh to his own ears, too loud. "We c-ca-han't g-go to our puh-huh-harents, either. Unless …" He looked hopefully at Richie. "What a-a-about your m-mom and d-dad, four-eyes? They suh-heem p-pretty reh-reh-regular."_

_"My good man," Richie said in his Toodles the Butler Voice, "you obviously have no understahnding whatsoevah of my mater and pater. They—"_

_"Talk American, Richie," Eddie said from his spot by Ben. He was sitting by Ben for the simple reason that Ben provided enough shade for Eddie to sit in. His face looked small and pinched and worried—an old man's face. His aspirator was in his right hand._

_"They'd think I was ready for Juniper Hill," Richie said._

* * *

Beverly fed her father's tape measure down the bathroom sink. When she pulled it out, all nine feet were covered in rust and sewage. The first six feet were also covered in blood. She guilty for making a mess right after the boys had helped her clean up, Eddie with an aspirator in his mouth the whole time, like it was a gas mask.

She caught up with them at the end of the street.

"...will know what to do," Eddie was saying.

"Are you talking about Bill?" she asked, a little breathless. Ben and Stan turned to look at her, then back at Eddie.

"Yeah." Eddie blushed. "Bill."

"Let's go," said Beverly. "Let's go tell him now."

She started to walk away, but Stan gently steered her in the other direction. Bev followed him the rest of the way to Bill's house, Ben behind her, and Eddie behind him.

There were no cars in the driveway. The front door was locked, an occurrence that was becoming more common in Derry as children continued to disappear. Stan raised his hand, but the door swung open before he could knock.

Bill was covered in dirt or— It was coal dust. It was all over his face, except for a few steaks of clean skin that couldn't be from anything other than tears.

"Eh- Eh- Eddie," said Bill. "Th- Thank— Do you have yuh- you're fanny pack?"

"Which one?" asked Stan, but his face was serious as he put a hand on Bill's shoulder.

"Ruh- Ruh- Richie—"

"Richie's here?" asked Bev. Bowers and his cronies must have come after Richie in retaliation for the fight behind the Aladdin. Bill must have been caught in the crossfire. That explained everything except the soot.

"You know Richie?" asked Eddie. He'd been frowning at the soot, but he was frowning at Bev now.

She didn't dare call it a date, not even as a joke. Richie had laughed along, albeit a little uncomfortably. He seemed to like having a guy and girl on each arm.

"He took me and Bev to the movies," said Ben. Bev was glad he spoke up, if only because Eddie turned his glare on Ben. He narrowed his eyes, like a sniper adjusting his scope.

Ben was oblivious. "It was a horror double feature. The best one was about a teenage werewolf." He was also oblivious to Bill's flinch. "He paid for our tickets, and when Bowers cornered us outside the theater, Richie fought 'em off, just like Michael Landon fought Tony Marshall in the movie. Richie's _great_."

"Richie's huh- hurt," said Bill.

He turned around and led them into the house. It appeared empty, but when Bill opened a door halfway down the hall, there was Richie.

He was lying on the bathroom floor, back propped against a claw-foot tub. He was covered in soot, just like Bill, but he was also covered in blood. It seemed to be coming from his head. It was hard to tell how much of it was soaked into his dark curls.

Eddie dropped to his knees, unphased compared to his treatment of the blood in Bev's bathroom. He cupped Richie's lax face with his fingers and tilted it forward. His other hand came up to push back Richie's hair. Close to the hairline, there was a big bump with a gash going through it, like a hardboiled egg after the first crack.

"Why didn't you take him to a hospital?"

"I- I- I tried," said Bill. "He wakes up and starts biting."

Eddie pulled his hand back.

"He say huh- his parents will kill huh- him."

"They wouldn't replace his glasses the last time he broke them," Eddie said, almost to himself. "Are they—"

"I've got them here." Bill patted his pocket. "I- I was trying to stah- stah- stah- stop the bleeding."

There were a few rags on the floor, dotted with blood. Just like the ones Bev had spent Stan's nickels to clean at the laundromat. She felt like her mother. "_I just cleaned up this mess."_

"You did good, Big Bill," said Eddie. "Head wounds bleed a lot. He'll be fine."

Eddie reached out a hand and patted Richie's cheek. Richie's eyes moved under the thin lids and he mumbled something that sounded a lot like, "Boyo."

"Wake up," said Eddie. "You gotta' wake up now."

Richie's eyes went wide, wider than normal.

"Breathe, Richie. With me, like when I have an asthma attack."

"Eds?" Richie blinked at him stupidly. Bev didn't think it had anything to do with the head wound.

"Don't call me that," said Eddie. "You're not breathing if you're talking."

"You have to breathe to—"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Richie squinted. "I don't know. I'm not wearing my glasses. But I can guess."

Bill slid Richie's glasses out of his pocket. There was tape across the bridge, but they didn't appear any more broken than the last time Bev saw them. Richie put on the glasses, and Eddie held up his middle finger again.

"Still don't know."

"I think you have a concussion," said Eddie. "If you go to sleep you'll die, so you'd better stay awake."

"Besides," said Stan. "You have to tell us what happened."

"Bill can tell you," said Richie.

"No," said Stan, "He can't. It'll take him two hours, and I think we need to teach Bowers a lesson before he forgets what it's about."

"Not Bowers," said Richie. "We went to the Neibolt house to look for Eddie's leper."

Eddie went tense, and he didn't relax, even when Richie said, "S'not what got me. I would've told you."

"What did get you?" he asked.

"Werewolf."

"A tuh- tuh- teenage werewolf," said Bill.

"I'm sorry," said Richie, sudden and loud, even for him. "It was my fault. The pom poms on its jacket— The leper and the werewolf are the same. The mummy too. They're all the clown. It looks like what we're scared of, and I was scared of the werewolf, so it—"

"Shut up," said Eddie, even though Richie was apologizing to Bill.

"Eddie's right," said Bill. "I mean, maybe that's wuh- wuh- why it looked like that, but if you hadn't been there, it probably would have looked like Guh- Guh- Georgie, and I don't think I cuh- cuh- could shoot Georgie. If anything, it's my fault for druh- dragging you along when you didn't even wanna' gu- go. I could have gotten you kuh- kuh- killed."

Richie shook his head. He was holding a hand to his head. Not the wound, but his temples.

"Headache?" asked Eddie. Richie just nodded. "Voices too loud?"

Another nod.

"Well, now you know how we always feel." Eddie took a bottle out of his second fannypack and poured three pills into Richie's hand. It wasn't the bottle of aspirin he'd passed around at Bev's house.

"Acetaminophen for concussions," he explained, catching Bev's watchful eyes. He was still glaring, but now it was at Bill. "They don't make you bleed so bad."

Richie's head hung forward, nearly hiding the slide of his throat as he dry swallowed the pills. Eddie shuffled a little closer, until Richie's forehead was resting on his shoulder. Bill stood up and left the bathroom. Ben and Stan followed suit, but Bev hesitated.

"Eddie, I—"

"I'm glad you guys went to the movies with him," said Eddie, softly. Richie wasn't asleep, but he didn't seem very aware of any surroundings beyond the crook of Eddie's neck. "I had to go visit my aunts in Bangor, and he— I'm glad he had someone to go with."

"Me too," said Bev. "He's a good friend."

"The best," said Eddie. He looked close to tears, but then his watery eyes hardened to ice, and he glared at her again. "Don't you dare tell him I said that."


End file.
